Saint Urho

March 16, 1956 - Today is the day that Finnish Americans in Northern Minnesota celebrate Saint Urho, who was invented as an excuse to start drinking a day earlier than Saint Patrick’s Day.

The original story was that Saint Urho expelled frogs from Finland with his loud, booming voice and his bad breath, but later the story morphed into its current form in which Saint Urho chased grasshoppers out of the country with the incantation, "Grasshopper, grasshopper, go from hence to Hell!”

Devotees of Saint Urho commemorate the day by getting decked out in purple and green, and quaffing vast quantities of green spirits.